A multi-analyte measurement capability is integrated into a single sensor.
Stennis Space Center, Mississippi
Stennis Space Center (SSC) is one of three government-operated rocket engine test facilities in the United States and is the primary center for testing and flight-certifying rocket propulsion systems for future space vehicles. Safety is a top priority at NASA-SSC. To safely test and certify rocket engines, monitoring technologies for rocket test stands, which (1) verify compliance with federal, state, and local government guidelines; (2) ensure a safe work environment for its personnel at ground testing facilities; as well as (3) monitor environmental impacts, are all required. Additionally, NASA has a need to monitor engine combustion efficiencies and engine health of a variety of launch vehicle configurations utilizing liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen, isopropanol, and kerosene. Multi-analyte measurement technology is essential for a safe and effective working environment. Therefore, for the advancement in multi-analyte technology in the rocket testing industry, a device was created that integrates multi-analyte measurements into a single sensor unit.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
A novel automated table lookup method is developed to compute the near-fuel-optimal powered descent guidance trajectories, in real-time, for planetary soft landing. The main advantage of this algorithm is that it can be executed autonomously in milliseconds without performing iterative numerical computations to obtain the solution of the optimization problem. The key enabling idea behind this approach is to store, in a lookup table, a number of optimal trajectories that have been computed on the ground for a systematically chosen set of initial conditions. In flight, a near-fuel-optimal trajectory is computed for the actual initial condition by interpolating between these pre-computed trajectories. The lookup method requires only a small, predetermined number of basic algebraic operations. Moreover, this method guarantees that the interpolated solutions are in a prescribed neighborhood of the true optimal solutions.

The reactor uses a directed 60-GHz source, which may require far less power to observe the same reactivity profiles.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
In industrial synthetic chemistry laboratories, reactions are generally carried out using batch-mode methodologies, stepwise reactions, and purifications to generate a final product. Each step has an associated yield of both the reaction itself and of the final purification that is largely dependent on the procedure being used, and the scientist carrying out the procedure. Continuous-flow reactors are one way of streamlining the process. Furthermore, microwave-enhanced, or microwave-assisted, chemistry has been demonstrated to aid in many of these areas; however, scaling has been a traditional problem with this technique.

Features include high testing rate and high data quality.
John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida
The guarded flat plate insulation test cryostat (Cryostat-500) is a boil-off calorimeter comprising a flat-bottom test apparatus for measuring the absolute thermal performance of an insulation test article. Typical dimensions allow accepting test specimens 200 mm in diameter by up to 30 mm thick. The test chamber is guarded by a second cryogen chamber to prevent parasitic heat loads. System insulation materials provide additional thermal stability for testing over a wide range of environmental conditions. The cold-mass assembly can be configured for rigid or soft materials, with or without compressive loads.

Question of the Week

This week's Question: This month, the Federal Aviation Administration proposed long-awaited rules on the commercial use of small drones, requiring operators to be certified, fly only during daylight, and keep their aircraft in sight. The ruling,...